


Headhunt

by spacejargon



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Established Relationship, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-02-04 17:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18609379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacejargon/pseuds/spacejargon
Summary: It's a bad day for both of them when Charles and Arthur stumble upon a trail of blood in the woods.





	1. Sacrilegious

Blood smears in fresh streaks over the ground when they first see it. Arthur raises a brow, figuring it must be some animal that’s been dragged off by a cougar or wolf. Not unusual, given it’s just before dawn and the horses are starting to get fidgety.

Taima snorts under Charles, tossing her head back a few times as if to shake off the blood. She obediently continues, the streaks in the grass nothing more than an unwelcome distraction. Arthur knows Charles must notice it too, placating Taima with a hand on her neck but saying nothing.

Then his Tennessee walker, Blue, stops in place. He stamps his hooves when Arthur’s thoughts catch up with him, shaking him back to the present. Blue makes a distressed noise, lifting off his front legs briefly and stamping them back down again. A quick tap to his sides and a murmur of comfort does nothing for him, too spooked as his ears pin and his large eyes peel back to the whites.

Charles turns around on Taima just ahead of them. Her tail swishes and flicks impatiently, nervous. “You okay back there?” he asks, focused on Blue. While there have been close calls, Arthur has yet to be thrown from him.

Arthur rubs a hand up and down Blue’s neck, squeezing his sides gently. “We’re good, jus’ a little spooked, ‘s’all.” His eyes can’t help but follow the tracks of blood that follow the path they’re taking, ominous as it seems to follow them. Eyes on his back, it feels like. “Must be a cougar or bear in the area if there’s this much blood. He gets real jumpy ‘bout that sort of thing.”

Charles nods, eyes narrowing as he squints at the trail of blood Taima hesitates to approach. “Might be best to lead him for a while. Don’t want him bolting with you on him.”

Arthur hums, tipping his hat over his eyes. Blue shivers beneath him, trying and failing to listen to Arthur’s consoling tones. “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he says after a pause, watching as Charles dutifully takes his place to the side, closer to the blood as Arthur urges Blue forward.

Blue meets Taima’s flank, the older of the two a gentle presence that manages to rein Blue back in. He huffs and snorts, whickering with a displeased noise, but eventually settles down. Enough so that Arthur can finally strain to get a look when the blood suddenly cuts from the grass and veers in front of the trail before them.

They approach the blood, Arthur grateful it doesn’t drag on for any longer until there’s a snapping of tree branches above him and something falls, thumping hard against the ground. It makes a squishing noise, blood and other bits of matter when he hears the distinct sound of bone crunching from the impact.

Blue shrieks and rears something fierce, Arthur’s shouts to him gone with the wind as Taima responds in kind. Right in front of them is a severed head, the face not even gray with death when its sunken eyes loll open and swim in the broken skull’s sockets.

“Oh _Jesus—_ ” Arthur snaps, and Blue rears again with a terrible scream. Charles is shouting something, but suddenly Taima’s spotted behind isn’t in the corner of his eye, and he’s suddenly falling without a horse underneath him.

Blue disappears like a flash of lightning. Arthur hits the ground with a rumble like thunder, feeling a sharp, stabbing pain in the arm he lands on before his skull collides with the ground.

~

Charles comes to with a grunt that sounds more like a shaky breath through his teeth. He blinks once, which stings enough to bring tears to his eyes that drip with a coagulated feeling. He blinks a few more times, ignoring the sting until his eyes are watery but manageable, and finds himself bound by his hands and feet.

The rope around him has him pinned on his knees, a post behind him anchoring his wrists and ankles in place. He’s pretty sure a good number of fingers are broken, going by how he can feel his heartbeat in them as they throb in tandem.

He smells smoke. Sees the fire through his one good eye, the other swollen shut and refusing to respond. It’s dangerously close, just far enough to feel the heat but not miss the burn sinking through his skin.

Voices. Too many of them at once in the colorful, hazy film that wraps around his pounding head.

“Knew today was gonna be a blessed day. Look at this,” a rough voice sneers, and Charles feels a kick against his leg that has his struggling as he flinches away. “A darkie falls right into our laps. God’s got a purpose for us, fellas, and scum like this devil ought to be sent for judgment!”

Well, shit.

Another kick to his shin has him reeling, struggling to breathe as his bones creak in warning. “Listen here, darkie, we’re about to make an example out of you, black as the damn devil’s coals you come from.”

A harsh laugh precedes the spit that strikes Charles’ face when he tries to look up from the dirt. “Red too, ain’t he? Ugly bastard’s colored like the Devil, just as nasty.” A hand grabs him by the collar and fingers slip around his throat, wrapping like a vice. Just as suddenly he’s jerked up, straining against his restraints as his vision swims around a figure drenched in white.

“I saw what you did, you sick bastard,” the hooded man snarls at him, others like ghosts circled around Charles as they shift amongst each other restlessly. “I know you and your other ghouls—devil worshippers, y’all are, I know what you been doin’ to these folk.”

Charles bites his tongue when he’s kicked again. He coughs and spits, blood leaking from his mouth as the Klansman recoils in horror. It’s enough to anger him when blood colors his sleeve, earning Charles a swift kick to the gut that has him gasping for air.

“We’re gonna send you straight back to Hell, red. Or whatever the hell you are—Devil ain’t gonna care either way. That man your buddies took off, Lord have mercy on him. Tried to help him, but you devils ain’t even close to human.”

_Arthur._

Going by the sneer in the man’s voice there’s no way they picked him up, no familiar shape cutting through the countless white robes in front of him.

“Let’s send this devil back where he belongs!” the leader calls, the others cheering as hands come to Charles’ arms, holding him prone as he struggles briefly. Staring down at him, the man in front of him fixes him with a cold glare. “You’re gonna pay for what you done, darkie!”

“The man,” Charles gets out, in between trying to breathe when a sharp kick has his head thudding against the post keeping him rooted in place. “That man you saw, where did they take him?”

“Why you wanna know?” He’s jolted upright to his bound feet, men on either side of him holding his arms once the ropes around the post are loosened. “Poor bastard’s probably dead by now, by the looks of things. You and your kind are unholy. Foul, damned plague rats that spread your disease in our blessed land—!”

Charles rears his head back and snaps it forward, dropping the man in an instant with a loud crunch. Blood weeps from his forehead before he’s slammed against the ground, voices rising like the beginnings of a tornado circling on the ground.

From the ground, the leader’s bare face streaked with blood greets Charles as he clamors to his feet. Blood stains his hood, knocked off and forgotten in the dirt. “Kill the bastard! Torch him like he did to them others, send him straight to Hell!”

Others grab for Charles as he wriggles in the tight ropes, the skin of his wrists rubbed raw and bleeding when they manage to hoist him up. Another emerges, this time in gray robes with dead fish eyes, glaring him down as it takes several more men just to keep Charles from breaking free.

A shotgun’s muzzle touches Charles’ chin, cold steel leaving imprints of grime against Charles’ skin as it presses into his throat.

“You ain’t even animals,” he snarls, a hatred in his eyes that knows no limit. “What you did to that poor feller, that weren’t humane. All that devil worship, you must be as black on the inside. No soul in monsters like you.”

“Hey, we can lynch the bastard, burn him all black!” Others are gathering now, one with a rope and the others wielding torches. Agreement burns through them with sneers and slurs, the hands on Charles tightening.

The shotgun stays pressed to his throat as they drag him over to a tree. Wood’s already being thrown at the base while others tie up the rope, throwing one half over and laughing when it hits Charles in the face. The noose tightens around his throat when another punch sinks into his gut, forcing him to spit up blood and bile that streaks down his nose and chin.

“There,” the leader crows, moving in a blur as Charles bites his breath in an attempt to get a lungful of air. The noose tightens around Charles’ throat to a strangling degree, a cut off gasp squeezing through his bruised lungs as he fights in the grip of his captors. “Take him away, gentlemen, and give him a good Ambarino welcome to those who walk around in our blessed country, cursing the good folk with their devilry and filth!”

He sucks in a breath. Remembers to breathe as he forces himself to not choke. He’s hung like a fish on a hook and he writhes like one when the man from before, the one he’d spat blood on, shoots him a look that promises vengeance when he starts pulling the rope. At first a tug doesn’t give much, until another two join him in pulling the rope just to get Charles off the ground.

He’s forced out of the hands of the men holding him still when he’s suddenly hoisted into the air. A crushed sound escapes him, drowned with laughter that rivals the cackles of coyotes, waiting for their feast to begin. The rope remains in the grasp of the one Klansman, his eyes focused on Charles with a predatory haze incited by blood lust.

“Alright, now for _true_ American justice!” The shotgun pokes Charles’ bruised stomach, making him swing in place. Struggle as he might, he’s faced with panic setting in alongside his broken fingers being too useless to cut himself free. He picks with what he can at the rope, a dim sensation his own guide to navigating the messy ropes binding him. “Let’s see this bastard burn, boys!”

Two carrying torches parade themselves over, laughing and snarling like wild animals as they take in Charles’ struggle with delight. A thunderous whinny breaks from the grasp of distant thunder, faintly registering in Charles’ mind as dark spots threaten to engulf him.

So, this is how he goes. Lynched—one of Lenny’s worst fears, John’s as well with the nervously fidgety way he gets around a public execution scaffolding. Burned alive, while the fate of Arthur is still a murky haze to him.

Fire burns at his feet when his boots are jerked off of him and he cries out—if the noise he makes can be described as that. Thunder breaks overhead, ushering in a rush as others contest the idea that the rains will only make it harder to keep him burning.

“God won’t have mercy on you, devil!” a whoop shatters the blood rushing in Charles’ ears. “None of you dark-skinned demons will live on God’s land!”

The world fades away in a rush, screaming in his ears as it goes dark. He’s on the cusp of death, blood trickling down his face in rivulets of opened wounds. Fire burns at him, licking at the soles of his feet and cracking him open to creep inside his veins and swallow him whole.

Screaming falls on deaf ears when the fire quickly spreads out of control. One of the torches falls from the grasp of one of the Klansman when their campfire starts to spit outside of its stony chimney pot. Flames quickly take to the thick robes at his feet and he howls like a banshee, scrambling as thunder cracks overhead.

“Stop! Stop it, you fools!” the gray-robed Klansman yells to his subordinates, fire dancing before his eyes with the ferocity of the Devil himself. He can only witness the horror unfolding as his best men quickly realize the fire is catching, devouring them alive while others run for their lives. “Stop it! Get back here!”

But even he realizes it’s a hopeless pursuit, flames growing higher on white robes and creeping across the dry grass with spidery tendrils. Taking one last hopeless glance to their fallen captive, whose rope has been burned when the men holding it had all caught fire in their panicked scramble.

He turns tail and runs, abandoning the charred bodies that collapse like a house of cards, original mission now forgotten in favor of escaping the aggressive flames.

Another clap of thunder sounds as a warning, lightning painting the sky a bright purple before the downpour starts. Flames quickly die down to smoldering cinders, burned bodies reeking of the sour aftertaste of death with scorched grass turning black and crumbling when the rain hits.

Charles takes his first gasp of air with rain on his face, blood in his nose and mouth. The world comes back to him in a rush, wind in his ears competing with his heartbeat slamming against his skull. More thunder breaks as the noose around his throat loosens just enough, lungfuls of air swallowed as fast as he can force them down his bruised throat.

It feels like an eternity before he’s picking at the sloppy rope holding his wrists in place. With some flexibility he manages to catch it on his feet, pulling hard to eventually pry the rope loose enough to pick apart with his functional fingers. He breathes in slowly, shaking with each heave that feels like it’ll be his last.

His thumb and forefinger of his right hand and his middle finger of his left are the only ones he can use. It takes him some time, but he manages to untie his ankles despite the stretch in his legs protesting being bent in such a way. When he finally frees himself, he sits back and feels his spine crack like a whip. The sky still bleeds rain, soaking him before he can find his boots and pull them back on gingerly.

Sitting up in the grass, he whistles as loud as he can. Waits, because for all he knows the downpour is drowning him out. Taima could have easily gone back to camp, spooked by anything that seemed too dangerous to handle.

Disheartened, he tries one more time, and then remembers the noose around his throat. Pulling it off is difficult when each twitch of the wrong finger becomes agonizing. When he’s managed to get it over his head, he throws it to the ground, coughing for good measure.

As he starts to contemplate what to do next, fully accepting that Taima’s not coming, he hears a whinny. Looks up to find Taima trotting toward him, breaking into a run as soon as she spots him. She doesn’t stop until she’s in front of him, nosing him carefully while sniffing his burned clothes with a snort.

A hand buries itself in her mane. “Good girl,” he murmurs, bracing himself against her. She’s antsy, her hooves dancing in place, but she doesn’t leave. Spooked as she is, she refuses to budge until Charles can haul himself up onto her back and focus his efforts to get his feet in the stirrups.

“Good girl,” he coos as she tosses her head back. She starts with little more than a tap to her sides, Charles turning to cough until he hacks up a lung. Sore as he is, his thoughts turn to Arthur, and he presses on with the hope that Arthur survived whatever it is that ambushed them.

~

He heads back to the spot where he and Arthur had been, the rain still coming down but not as hard as it was when he first started. Luckily for him, he finds himself back on the bloodied trail, the blood eerily staining the ground despite the earlier downpour. Hoofprints from Taima and Blue are mostly covered up by now, barely visible as Charles squints through the rain.

When he comes upon the blood, Taima starts to get uneasy again. He can feel it too, an odd shiver creeping down his spine he attributes to paranoia. But as they move further, he finds the smashed remains of the head that had fallen, Taima now more vocal about her objections for getting any closer.

“Easy, girl,” he soothes, managing to pull a sugar cube from his saddlebag. She turns her head back and noses it for a second, glancing back at the head before finally accepting it. Charles rides her closer, blinking the rain out of his eyes and focusing.

There’s a pattern of ground that looks disturbed—probably where Arthur fell, going by the scuffed hoof prints before they disappear down the path. Marks, like someone being dragged, disappear into the trees where the blood veers away from.

With a sinking feeling growing in the pit of his chest, Charles urges Taima forward, following the tracks as the rain continues to fall. It doesn’t help, with one hand holding a pistol and the other on Taima’s reins, as in this forest, which he’s been through countless times, he can’t help but feel he’s being watched.

He continues on, coaxing himself to forget the aches that settle in his bones like water-sodden ground. _Arthur_ haunts him like these woods, spurring him further into the forest.

The tracks take him away from any stretch of road he’s familiarized himself with. Here, at least an hour into riding, he hasn’t seen a road since he started. Determination keeps him going, the forest silent as death the further he rides.

Blood jumps out at him from dried leaves littering the forest floor. Immediately he steers Taima toward it, noting her anxiety as they approach. They push on, Charles leaning as far as his stomach permits to follow the trail into a patch of forest where the sun doesn’t break through.

Taima, upon reaching the edge of where the forest meets this thickened swath of seemingly impenetrable trees, stops. She refuses to move forward, stamping her feet much like Blue did before. Only this time, Charles slides off, pocketing knives from his saddlebag while he regains his footing.

“Don’t go far,” he murmurs to her, picking up the sounds of activity from within. The eerie feeling returns, like a darkness encompassing him on the edge of where the world splits from reality into...something else. He’s never been one for superstitions, but this place hardly can be classified as only disturbing.

Taima trots off quickly after he sends her off. He pats himself down, somehow lucky enough to have encountered not only racists, but incredibly stupid ones that hadn’t thought to remove his weapons. His fingers may not work right, but it doesn’t mean he can’t fight.

Now, he looks back to the forest, what he’s going to do is up in the air. The sinister feeling surrounding the area with the coppery reek of blood doesn’t soothe any of his thoughts. Instead, it riles them up, creating an uncomfortable itch rolling in between the layers of his skin.

Steeling himself, he heads in, slipping into the mindset of a hunter as he tries not to think of whether or not he’s being hunted here.

The blood becomes harder to follow, he realizes once the light fades from the forest floor. Thick trees surround him, but the stench of freshly spilled blood is what draws him further. Charles can feel each shock from his burned feet from every step, forcing himself to not jerk or flinch away. With every spike of pain, he hisses, but doesn’t move.

Branches break around him. He freezes, molding into the shadow of a tree as he flattens himself. Slowing his breath, he waits. For a long pause there’s nothing but silence, where not even the calls of birds can be heard.

Then he hears it. To his left he glances over his shoulder, pressing close to the tree trunk. The smell is undeniable. Fresh, by how it stings his nose with the pungent burn that threatens to churn his stomach. He remains steadfast, breathing through his mouth when he finally spots it—a flicker of movement from within the trees.

Black. Nothing but black, but he catches a glimpse of firelight in a lantern. Something holding onto the lamp carefully creeps through the forest in measured steps. Where its body is as black as the shadows around it, the light bounces off the curvature of a face. Charles strains to look, but quickly is beaten back to the shadows when the figure stops.

It turns in his direction. Now he can finally see the face, only it’s not a face at all. Instead, it’s a mask made of the skull of an elk. Long horns protrude from its head and twist into the darkness, its eyes empty black sockets as it stares down where Charles is.

For an eternity or so, it doesn’t move. Others appear around it, the sinister feeling at the back of Charles’ mind calling to him now. It worsens when he catches more lights to his right, appearing as if from nowhere. He stays as still as death, broken fingers clasping onto the last of his throwing knives, poisoned and not.

Then, they finally move. The lanterns are oddly silent as they trudge on, all heading in the same direction. They move like ghosts; Charles realizes as he can’t hear the sounds of their footsteps. All he knows is that they remain entirely doused in black, catching the white of their skull masks before their backs are turned to him, disappearing like an extinguished candle.

It takes a good while before Charles trusts himself to move again. When he does, he creeps through the brush, each step making more noise than the last as it gets harder to move. But he focuses his efforts, accordingly, knowing that with the stench of blood there must be something beyond him.

He comes upon a small clearing after constantly looking over his back. The smell of blood and gore is overpowering, and it takes all the willpower he has left not to gag. Once he manages to breathe without feeling his throat squeeze, he peels away from the trees to get a better look.

It’s a mess. Blood stains every surface, leaving the area drenched in what looks like the aftermath of a massacre. Rained down from the skies in how much it’s spread, the blood so thick that whatever is beneath it is virtually unrecognizable. Charles squeezes his eye shut and swallows once, twice, three times until he can breathe.

His eyes take him to an area of rocks where body parts lie scattered, from the ground to pieces impaled on the ends of sticks. Heads top each stake he finds; the stakes dyed a dark red while meat and organs lay scattered like fertilizer. All the parts he sees are distinctly human, despite their mangled states. Bile creeps up Charles’ throat despite his best efforts, the sight of the gore burned into the back of his eye like a brand.

Then he spots it. Tied up like an animal to be slaughtered, over the one area that isn’t drenched in blood. There’s a pentagram drawn into the ground, large enough to fit a man inside of it easily. But that’s not his focus, his eyes climbing to the figure tied by each of its limbs, hanging like a macabre skin drum.

Charles’ breath catches in his throat. For a moment he squints with his good eye, then swallows down a chill as he agonizes over whether he’s too late. He doesn’t dwell on it for long, not when he recognizes the sandy blond hair despite the blood covering nearly every inch of Arthur’s torn clothes.

~

For a moment, when he hears the sound of footsteps Arthur feels himself tense. Uselessly, because he’s tied and there’s no way he’s getting anywhere. Tied as tightly as he is, he hangs on his own weight by his arms and legs, his right arm not feeling right ever since he was thrown from Blue.

“Arthur,” Charles calls, his voice straining. Arthur manages to lift his head, exhaustion flooding his veins as soon as he sees Charles cut from the shadows. He catches the glint of silver before Charles can be captured in the firelight, throwing knives in between Charles’ knuckles when he approaches.

“Charles,” Arthur groans, his head dropping when Charles’s fingers set to cutting the ropes holding him. “Never thought I’d see you here.”

Before Charles cuts the rope tied to his other wrist, an arm wraps around Arthur’s waist. Arthur’s legs are already unstable, cut free with blood caking where the ropes had tied around him. “Lean on me,” Charles instructs him, cutting through the rope. As soon as he’s free, Arthur stumbles, held up by Charles with a sigh of relief.

“Are you okay to walk?” Charles maneuvers his uninjured arm around his shoulders, taking Arthur by the waist. “I can carry you, but I don’t want to hurt you more than you already are.”

Arthur’s stomach twists at the mention. There’s a gash on his stomach where they...whoever— _whatever_ they are, held a jeweled dagger to his stomach and _pushed._ Memories he has remind him of his guts falling through his stomach, picked away like unwrapping thread from a spool.

He sways on his feet. Charles moves to catch him. “’m okay,” he breathes through his nose, feeling it broken in at least two different places with his voice sounding unlike him. He’s been put through the worst of ways, left alive and with hazy, uncertain memories he’d rather not repeat. “Let’s...get outta here.”

As they slip into the dark forest, Arthur can see his blood pouring into that pentagram beneath his feet, the ground swallowing it up as if he’d never been cut open. Each time they cut him, with those wickedly curved daggers as sharp as the bones of their faces, he’d felt himself being drained dry. Didn’t imagine he’d wake up, but he kept finding himself, again and again, reliving the nightmare until he thought he finally lost it.

They’re both on edge as they navigate the thick forest, the pressure in the air getting lighter with the further they move away. Arthur’s scrambled memory tries to think of what all that’s happened, his grasp on reality slipping through his fingers like smoke.

Once they’re far enough away, Charles whistles lowly. Taima comes running, skidding to a stop before them. She tosses a nervous look behind them, a soft noise coming from her as if she’s afraid of being overheard.

“Here, just...just give me a moment,” Arthur turns away from Charles and promptly throws up, vomit splattering on Charles’ boots and his own. Charles holds him through it, brushing off his back as Arthur feels every last bit of bile and stomach acid wrench itself from within. He doesn’t stop, not especially when he feels something clang against the walls of his throat. Horrified, he chokes and coughs, feeling something sharp dislodge and land in the puddle of vomit at his feet.

It’s a wooden talisman no bigger than two fingers, a dark black stone in the middle that seems to glimmer red amongst the filth it lies in. Charles tightens his grip on him, a voice in his ear as Arthur can only get out _I don’t know what they done to me_ until Charles decides it’s better to not ask. Tears stream down his cheeks from the force of his retching, but the strange object he picks up—against Charles’ warning—seems only to appear unscathed, leaving a chilling sensation curling in his belly.

He drops it, pressing it under his boot until it breaks. Heat burns through his boot and he pulls away quickly, as if burned, to see the thing crumble where it once was, unrecognizable. Another series of coughs travel up his throat, spurring another round of emptying out what little could possibly be left inside him.

For a moment, he’s worried that his organs will fall right out of his mouth. It’s a helpless sort of feeling that doesn’t fade when he manages to get his coughing under control. The fear chooses to haunt the back of his mind as blood joins the mix, dripping from his mouth and where his throat feels like it’s been skinned.

When he’s finally done, Charles on constant vigilance, he lets Charles help him up onto Taima. Doesn’t let go of the man until he’s up as well, leaning against his back with a groan.

“Hold on, Arthur,” Charles says, sounding more exhausted than he let on. That makes two of them, in an air of stunned silence that takes them away from the forest.

It’s a long while before they leave the forest. Even longer before the silence is easier to break, the feeling of eyes on Arthur’s back a sinuous line to Charles’ hunched shoulders with the necklace of purple around his throat.

“Wha’ happened t’ya?” Arthur murmurs, too afraid of prying his functional arm from Charles’ waist to touch the bruises that discolor Charles’ throat. “Charles, you...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Charles sounds as calm as can be, as if it’s _nothing,_ and Arthur’s gut burns at the thought. But for now, he can’t think, let alone sound reasonable when the queasiness in his stomach hasn’t let up yet. “Let’s just get back to camp. Maybe...Maybe Blue will be there.”

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees, dizzy now. He can’t imagine how Charles feels, with one wrong touch forcing the man to shudder. Especially at his stomach, the muscles there quivering with the slightest pressure. He wants to apologize, really, but the words keep slipping from his tongue.

Thunder rolls in the distance. Arthur’s thoughts turn to Blue, Mrs. Adler’s story for him at the tip of his mind— _like blue sky lightning, that one is_.

He coughs, Charles’ question going straight over his head, and feels himself slipping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my beta for your patience and dedication to assisting me in my ventures. I may rewrite this in its entirety, but for now it is welcome practice.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	2. Ritualistic

The ride back clinging to Charles’ back, glued to him by mixed blood that could be his or Charles’, is an uncomfortable one. Despite hanging on a thread of consciousness, fussily undetermined in whether or not he could will himself to stay awake, Arthur feels pain radiate through him like a fresh shiner.

His grip slides from Charles’ sides time and time again. Even more so when Charles helps him set his nose, apparently an easy fix that hurts like a bitch. Charles is a mess, reeking of smoke and dried blood. He’s quiet, much more than he usually is, noisily whistling breaths through his nose as the only indication he’s still awake.

“Hey, Charles, we gotta stop.”

“Hm?” Charles’ voice is a sore croak, splitting in pieces like wood that’s been struck with a dull axe.

Arthur feels a pulse of sympathy for him, the source of the hideous bruises rattling around in his head. He’s not too certain of anything, but suspicion lies on the tip of his tongue.

“Stop,” Arthur feels drool spill over his lips in a thick glob, tongue heavy between his teeth. “I don’t feel so good.”

Charles creaks with a low moan behind his tongue. “Arthur, we can’t slow down now. Camp’s not too far, but we can find a town nearby—”

“’m sorry, but I’m gonna be sick if you keep going.” To prove his point, he coughs, though going too far and retches wetly instead. Nothing comes up, thankfully, as Arthur sees images of bloodied organs ripped to pieces falling onto the ground below and pointedly screws his eyes shut to turn away.

Taima slows to a stop. She nickers, tail swishing impatiently behind her. Arthur slips off her flanks, stumbling when he catches himself before his face reacquaints itself with the forest floor.

His arm wraps around his stomach, sore and aching like a night after drinking too much and waking up with a full-body ache. His wrists are caked with dried blood, staining a ruddy brown with how much blood has crusted. Bruises line them as he tugs at his soiled sleeves to reveal his hands, small lines of trickling blood oozing from the crusty rope burns.

More blood stains his clothes and face, his stomach being the worst of all. The stench of it elicits a nauseated churn of his stomach, forcing Arthur up against a tree with a shoulder to brace him as he gags and bitterly hopes he won’t throw up again.

The hand that touches his shoulder makes him jump far too high. Catching his startled breath with a forceful grunt, he turns to Charles before his stomach drops.

Charles is a mess. One eye swollen shut and bruising darkly against his skin, he manages to catch Arthur’s gaze with his other eye. The one Arthur can see is tinted red around the iris, which he imagines the whites of Charles’ eyes are equally as bloodied. His gaze reaches Charles’ throat, the polka-dot blue shirt clinging to him dirtied and purpled with stains of red around his chest. His throat looks rubbed raw, rivaling the purple stains of his collar that weep in rivulets down his breast.

“Are you okay?” Arthur asks, softened by the concern in Charles’ eyes. Taima rests beyond them, nosing the ground as she searches for something to graze on. Charles, however, remains unfazed. Has he even seen himself?

Thick, blistered fingers touch his own throat. “Fine,” he admits in a ragged whisper. Though he doesn’t act convincing, he’s content to sway slightly in place as he looks over Arthur. “You?”

A grimace in the disguise of a wry smile falls short. “’bout the same, Mr. Smith.” With one arm around his gut, afraid to move it, he touches the fingers on his own shoulder, feeling cuts and blisters there. Another painful lurch of sickness quickly sweeps him up with it. “Think I…think maybe we should get goin’. ‘fore anything else happens.”

Charles nods, slow and clearly hesitant with the motion. “I’m not sure where we are,” he gives, turning to rove his eye over their surroundings. He has a point, making it clear when the forest floor they stand on isn’t the thick grass dotted with wildflowers from the Grizzlies, where they originally started. Instead, pine needles and brown leaf litter coat most of the ground, twigs and branches lining every step.

The trees here are long and spindly, grayed in the sun and some with sparse patches of leaves. Arthur takes in their surroundings with a careful suck of breath between gritted teeth and sighs.

“We were…what, ‘round Moonstone Pond?” He thinks back to his map, unfortunately stowed on Blue after shoving it into a saddlebag instead of back in his satchel. Which, surprisingly, is still attached to him. Along with his hat, which makes the dream-like quality of his memory seem even more far-fetched.

Charles nods. “Think so.” He turns in place slowly, surveying the area once again to be sure. Of what, Arthur doesn’t rightly know. Hell, his head is pounding, and he can’t much imagine Charles to be faring any better.

The hand on his shoulder falls through his fingers. Charles blinks—winks, technically—slowly and sighs a deep breath. It must hurt—his shoulders tense at the slightest hitch catching in his throat.

They turn back to Taima, who has abandoned her task of finding something to graze on and instead lifts her head to them in return. She flicks an ear to the side, blinking her big brown eyes before turning to face forward, shifting her weight on her hooves.

“Should see if ya got any medicine since mine’s gone,” Arthur starts as he waits for Charles to hoist himself up in the saddle before he gets on Taima’s back himself. An arm creeps around Charles, gripping him less forcefully when he can’t rid himself of the images of Charles’ battered face from his eyes. “You could use it, Charles.”

Clicking his tongue, the huntsman doesn’t answer immediately. When he does, it’s in the same tired croak. “I’m fine.” A pause slides its way between them. “There should be some in my bag. You should have it.”

“Now hold on,” Arthur huffs, unease slowly prying its grip from him and receding to the depths of his mind. “That ain’t fair. You look as miserable as I feel, and ya sound worse.”

Twisting as little as he can get away with, Arthur slides curious fingers into a pack by his thigh. His arm still shakes but he manages to wrap his fingers around a glass bottle. Plucking it from the bag, he holds up the dark green object, squinting through his unsteady vision to read the label.

“Found some,” he pipes up, to no sound of acknowledgment from Charles. He figures the man must be exhausted as he is, watching the trees as he directs Taima to the east. Another search turns up another bottle, carefully held between Arthur’s fingers as he offers one, pinched between his index and middle finger, to Charles.

He feels Charles glance down at the offered bottle for a moment of consideration. Then he finally takes it, a murmured word of thanks so soft Arthur barely hears it. He swallows the contents of his own bottle straight, grimacing and quickly regretting his decision when his stomach rolls with discontent.

“Eugh.” Arthur spits off to the side, fumbling to push his hat further on his head. He moves it so, carefully resting his cheek against Charles’ back as they ride on. A twist in his gut makes his head spin. Maybe he shouldn’t have drunk it all at once.

Closing his eyes, he feels Charles tilt his head back and carefully swallow his own. He only manages a mouthful or two, grunting low and raw in his throat. The bottle slides into his pocket, one hand coming to gingerly massage his throat as the other keeps a hold of Taima.

They ride for what seems like an hour or so, the sun getting lower through the trees that all look the same. The entirety of the ride is silent, Taima grunting every now and then as she grows weary with the extra weight on her back.

A grunt skidding against raw flesh and sore muscle breaks the blanket of silence over them. The forest itself is pretty quiet, bird calls echoing in the distance and rustling of leaves with snapping twigs always just out of eyesight.

Taima slows to a stop once again. Arthur rests heavily against Charles, the arm around him having gone slack long ago. Charles doesn’t mean to disturb him but doubt and suspicion crawl up from the depths of his stomach and refuse to go unnoticed.

“That’s strange,” he coughs, squinting through his eye. The other remains swollen but the medicine Arthur had offered him had done a fair enough job of reducing the swelling. He can’t see through it yet, unfortunately. “We passed by that rock twice now.”

Arthur sits up straighter, alert as a hitch carries in his breath. He’s upright in an instant, his head whipping to where Charles glances at a moss-covered about fifty feet away. Recognition faintly registers in his mind while Charles mulls it over.

“Whole place looks the same,” Arthur mumbles drowsily behind him. “What time is it?”

Before he can answer, Arthur is already searching through his satchel, hissing a curse when he sees the broken cover glass of his watch. Shards slip into his palm, dumped on the ground unceremoniously.

“Quarter to six,” he gives, his voice riddled with apparent confusion. “We been walkin’ that long?”

That doesn’t sound right. Arthur voices this with a grunt. “That ain’t right.” He thinks, pressing his forehead to Charles’ shoulder with a hum. “Where d’you think we are, Charles?”

“It doesn’t look anything like Ambarino,” he offers, patting Taima’s sweaty neck with an apology. They should’ve met the end of the forest by now, going by the hours he’s mentally counted since. Even if Arthur’s pocket watch is wrong, it’s been far too long to stay in the same place. “I’m not sure.”

Arthur slides from Taima’s back, wincing when he hits the ground. “Hold on,” he calls, disappearing to Charles’ left to the moss-covered rock. Charles realizes what he’s doing when he reaches the rock, hobbling all the while, and places a medicine bottle on the top. When he turns back, hand hovering over his hip as he darts his head to his left and right, Charles feels a strong grip weaving itself in his chest.

The cowboy hauls himself back up on Taima. “Let’s keep riding for a little while. Poor Taima needs a break from carryin’ all this weight.” The drop in his tone doesn’t go unnoticed. Charles knows he’s thinking of Blue and hopelessly mulling over the fate of his beloved horse.

“Alright,” he murmurs, giving a tap to Taima’s sides when they start again. 

~

Another hour passes in the blink of an eye. Taima takes more breaks than before, all of them exhausted while Arthur offers time and time again to walk beside her. Charles decides it best they take turns, the blisters on his feet already soaking his boots as they rub and pop from the stress of walking.

By the time they come upon any distinguishing feature in the forest, a mossy rock, both of them look worse for wear. Taima pants constantly, drinking from any puddles they pass and pulling forcefully at grass during their breaks. She gets carrots and other treats from Charles as an apology, earning a crumbled oatcake Arthur fishes out of his bag and offers sheepishly.

The lull of walking for so long combined with the soreness that plagues him makes him lazy. Lazy enough to fall into a trance as he walks beside Taima, Arthur sitting in the saddle when he startles Charles with a cry.

“You gotta be shittin’ me!” he snaps, throwing himself from Taima despite his best interests. Like a hound on a scent trail he makes a beeline toward the mossy rock, far enough away to not see it as more than a hazy monolith in the distance.

Arthur’s shape becomes less defined as he makes his way over. Charles squints after him, shaking his head when his vision blurs too much to see anything at all. If anything, Arthur’s frustrated shout reaches him quickly.

“What the hell!?” Arthur snaps, holding up something in his hands. Charles, weary but determined, takes Taima’s reins and leads her beside him down Arthur’s way. As they approach, Arthur remains firmly in place, though he doesn’t look to be startled by anything.

“Look at this!” Arthur cries, thrusting out the bottle in his hands as soon as Charles is close enough to see. Charles raises a brow, blinking through his blurry vision to catch the dark green of a medicine bottle. “How the hell is that possible?”

Charles offers no explanation, dumbfounded himself as he stares at the bottle. Arthur seethes with frustration, exhaustion wearing him down—both are suffering for it. These woods don’t seem to be anything more than to do just that—wear them down.

Suspicion creeps along Charles’ muddy thoughts. Murky, with flashes of silver like fish in a polluted pond. They slip through his fingers and slide deeper when he reaches for them.

“Goddammit,” Arthur curses a blue streak with a snarl. He doesn’t need to look up to see Charles in silent agreement, rubbing down Taima’s throat as she noses him impatiently. “This don’t make any sense. We been goin’ in a straight line, _east_ , and we’re back here?”

Glancing toward the sky, Charles offers nothing to placate him. He’s not entirely certain of what’s going on, but he figures that the longer they keep riding like this, tired as they are, the worse trying to find the edge of the forest will go.

Arthur’s hat tips over his eyes. He rubs the back of his neck, sore, and groans. Out of the corner of an eye, a dark figure stands between the trees where they once stood.

Charles’ head whips around, though not as furiously as Arthur snaps up and reaches for his revolver. He’s pointing it, the telltale click of the chamber loading a bullet beside Charles’ head as they turn to an empty patch of trees.

Spooked, Arthur doesn’t immediately holster his revolver. Dying sunlight glints off the customized steel, glittering with a pale silvery glow that catches on simple engravings stretching down the barrel.

“Tell me you saw that too,” Arthur asks, too tired to be startled. He sounds defeated, as far as Charles is concerned. “Tell me I ain’t—I ain’t seein’ things again.”

Charles faces him. “Again?”

Without a word further, Arthur shakes his head dismissively. He mumbles too quietly to be overheard, a wild look to his eyes before they flick to his feet and then to Taima.

He sucks in a strained breath and sighs with a hiss. “Let’s stop for the night.” Arthur fixes him with a hard stare. “Just to get some rest. I’ll take watch.”

A long moment grows between them, burrowed in silence. Then he hears a huff.

“Should be fine. Whatever happened, it’s…” Arthur trails off, following Charles with his eyes as the other goes to remove his camping supplies from Taima. “Shouldn’t bother us.”

Charles hesitates in unlatching the bedroll as Arthur examines the medicine bottle in his hand. His eyes catch a rocky outcropping deeper in trees. His stomach flips at the thought, a premonition of a warning flitting through his mind as he reconsiders, glancing back to the mossy rock.

“Let’s head over there,” Charles motions with his chin, gritting his teeth and ignoring the throb that arises in protest. “Better protection from anything on the ground. Maybe it has better shelter.”

“Sure,” Arthur hums, convinced as he’ll ever be as he follows behind Taima, limping all the while.

~

After Charles helps him down onto the bedroll, Arthur takes a moment to compose himself. “D’you…uh, d’you remember anything?”

A shrug. It’s dark inside their tent, only because it’s pitched under the cover of a rock in a small cave carved into the cliffside. A lantern sits lit beside the head of the bed, proving a source of light.

“Blue spooked ran out from under you. You fell. And something hit me.” A stare. “Do you remember anything?”

Arthur’s fingers twitch and he swallows. “Nah,” he says, unconvinced of his own lie as his throat moves like trying to untwist the muscles with a rough gulp of air. “Don’t make no sense.”

Charles eyes him, unimpressed. Arthur eventually gives in to the silent pressure as his eyes catch the bruises lining Charles’ throat. “Those things, with the masks.”

The huntsman swallows, the action rough against his throat. A few cans had been salvaged from his pack, scattered at their feet and remaining untouched. Neither are too hungry for anything. “I saw.”

Arthur brightens up then, scowling darkly only moments after. “The things we saw, they…they wasn’t real.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“The masked things. They didn’t have nothin’ underneath the masks. One of ‘em came up real close, and there was nothing.” A haunted look returns to Arthur, a stifled shudder tensing his shoulders. “I only remember bits and pieces, like being dragged across the ground. And…” he trails off, pressing his cracked lips into a thin line.

Charles passes him the mostly empty canteen fished from his satchel. Arthur’s remains almost entirely empty, the contents lost to the woods and his mysterious disappearance. Arthur takes it without a fuss, popping off the top and carefully sipping the water.

The first touch to his tongue is cursed. Arthur pitches forward, wracked with a sudden burst of coughs that turn violent. The canteen slips through his fingers and falls, draining onto the rocky ground before Charles can grab it. He’s not entirely preoccupied by the canteen though, surging forward when Arthur coughs and chokes the same way Charles remembers by the coiled rope around his throat.

“Arthur, Arthur, calm down,” Charles talks over the panicked coughs, touching Arthur’s bicep and earning a flinch in response. Arthur ignores him entirely, spitting into his hands and gagging as the coughs worsen.

The coughs culminate in the horrid noise of Arthur choking something up. He pushes through wheezes and blood-tinged choking until a wooden object falls between Arthur’s fingers and thumps against the grass-covered rocky ground.

With an exasperated groan, Arthur heaves in a breath. He lies back, quickly righting himself when a jolt of pain catches him from the bottom of his spine and wraps around his stomach. The gash on his stomach has healed to a puckered pink, strangely enough, but it aches like the fresh wound it’s supposed to be.

“What the…?” Arthur croaks, rivaling Charles’ hoarseness when he opens his palm and reveals wooden tiles, matching the one on the ground. He stares blankly at the chips, all the same size and decorated like the first one that had come from him.

A handful of the wooden talisman, no more than five in total, sit in Arthur’s bloodied palm. Charles studies the one from the ground, eying the dark gem colored with blood hanging from the carved wood. One reassuring hand remains on Arthur’s arm while he turns the object over in his hand.

Tears once again fall from Arthur’s cheeks as he catches his breath. He remains uncharacteristically silent, adding to the quiet growing between them that threatens to coil around Charles’ throat and—

Charles clears his throat. If he closes his eyes to calm himself and these irrational thoughts, he’ll see it again. The rope and the fire licking up white robes, the burned skin at the bottom of his feet he refuses to treat until Arthur’s asleep.

Arthur’s quiet mumble rips him from his reverie. “Think ‘m cursed,” he spits blood into his palm. His eyes droop, breaths softening while he swallows around his blood-coated tongue that darts out to lick his lips. “I don’t…”

“Get some sleep, Arthur,” Charles interrupts him gently, insistent. “We can eat later if you’re not up to it. You need to rest.”

Arthur eyes him warily. “So do you,” he mutters miserably, pain bubbling in his throat. “Just wanna wake up.”

“I know,” is the quiet murmur he receives, brushing against his ear as Charles very carefully maneuvers to sit against his side. The bedroll is wet from the canteen, reminding Charles of his dry mouth with a bitter sting. But nothing compares to the arm he wraps around Arthur, letting the other’s head come to rest on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Arthur.”

He does his best not to watch the shadows. There’s a debate of whether or not he should leave the lantern on that wars inside his head while Arthur sighs against him.

A hand catches one by his side, pulling it over Arthur’s ribs. “Don’t leave,” Arthur murmurs from beneath him, easing himself down to the pillow made of folded jackets. He must see Charles’ gaze toward the opening of the tent, out where Taima is grazing just a few feet away.

“I won’t,” Charles creaks, soothed some by the kiss pressed to his hand and the brush of Arthur’s hat against the arm holding Charles up. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He hears a low mumble he can’t make out before Arthur heaves a heavy sigh. He feels the same. Though not as able to lie himself back and drift off as Arthur is fated to do, not with the phantoms that haunt him of the day’s events.

Try as he might, Charles can’t bring himself to relax. The need for sleep gnaws at his eyes and tugs to close them, but they always manage to snap open. Noise or not, nothing lets Charles do more than blink.

Instead of dwelling on it, he keeps his fingers tracing over Arthur’s bruised ribs, unaware of the full extent of Arthur’s injuries. Arthur swore he was fine, and it could wait until morning, but he isn’t so sure. Then again, he hasn’t told Arthur much of his ordeal either—something he’ll have to remedy before Arthur gets suspicious.

He closes his eyes, listening to the soft sounds of Arthur settling into sleep, and snaps awake when Arthur twitches against him.

~

A knife passes over his ribs. Tied to the wooden stakes is where he finds himself in a state of half-awake and mostly dead.

Blood gurgles past his lips when he sees the glint of the jeweled dagger. Strange thing, with gems for eyes in the sockets of skulls decorating the hilt. The blade has a wicked curve and a thirst for blood as it drags across his torn shirt, buttons slipped through their holes and two flaps hanging open to shield the blood dripping from fresh cuts.

The skull that stares at him, eye sockets as dark and empty as the blackest depths of a tar pit, haunts him with a branding image stamped behind his eyes. He jerks in his ropes, catching glimpses of the pentagram drawn in fresh blood around him. When he looks again toward the knife, it’s glinting with blood dripping like syrup to a hand that isn’t there.

He cries out when the blade touches his sternum. It digs in and pierces the flesh easily, drawing a line from there to his navel. Another flick of it tears open the flesh between his lower ribs, drawing blood to stream down his chest and paint him red.

Here he can’t talk. There’s nothing in his mouth but words don’t form when he tries to open his mouth found clamped shut. He watches in horror as the knife draws blood from him, seeking as it drags across his skin and scores him like a roast. Each cut is met with a grunt and a weak cry out, panic seizing in his limbs as he struggles, fruitlessly, against the ropes splaying him like an offering.

The dagger stops at his navel. The knife turns upward, words catching in Arthur’s throat in a jumbled mess, and _presses_. It doesn’t linger, however, and the black robes with an elk’s skull stare blankly at him—if it can do that with those burning black sockets—and drags the knife up his stomach.

He screams with a deafening roar. Blood gurgles in his throat as the skin peels away like the skin of an apple. Blood pours from him and soaks his pants torn around his thighs with more slashes that weep silently. He screams and screams until the dagger stops at his throat and catches the sight of a long strip of flesh hanging by a webbed thread, horror choking him into silence.

Then the dagger starts next to the removed flesh at his navel and presses, coaxing the screams out of him before it can carve into him. Blood pours from him hot and wet, gushing from the quivering mess of his exposed muscle coated in bright red blood.

A frantic mantra— _no no no_ —stumbles blindly around his skull as the skin peels away from his flesh. He watches himself be stripped to tatters as he grits his teeth until they shatter and break, cutting through his tongue while the skull stares directly into him. More flesh carves and peels away with the agony of being pulled through glass—sharp, cruel strokes of sizzling torment raging from his stomach and contorting him like pulling strings around his muscles. All the while he struggles, screaming for what must be forever.

The dagger finds itself at the side of his stripped flesh, murmurs and half-mad noises falling from Arthur’s lips in clumsy tumbles that becomes shouts when the bloodied steel pushes in. But this time it’s _deeper,_ oh _Christ_ , and it makes a tearing noise when it slides straight through the muscle like a hot knife in soft butter.

The muscles give away with little resistance. The scream torn from the depths of his soul, whatever’s left of it, is deafening. It drowns out the sound of the rest of the muscle being sliced away in one slick motion.

Then a blackened form, an imitation of a skeleton’s hand, reaches past cut muscle that springs back when cut, wetly brushing against its halves like the brush of a degloved horse hoof against a rocky ground. A bristling sensation of no known equivalent when his intestines are grabbed in a vice grip and pulled out of him with an oozing slowness. They shine red with blood though the squeamish pink of them hold firm in the dim light of flames burning around him, squelching with a sudden squeeze.

Arthur’s voice cracks and breaks as he screams. It’s so loud he’s flaying his own throat and he must be crumbling mountains. His ears fall deaf moment by moment, but his eyes remain pried open when he catches his entrails wrapped in a shadowy grip, presented before his eyes, and then shoved back inside of him.

The depths of terror laced in the deepest recesses of bone and blood find him, clawing him until Arthur hears the sound of screaming in his deafened ears and the world falls away.

~

Arthur wakes with a yell, ears ringing and drenched in a feverish sweat that chills him to the bone. When he snaps up there’s a sharp spike of where the dagger had cut him—in his dream—where he can’t make sense if it was real or not.

When he finally manages to get a firm hold of himself, lying to himself that his grip on the terror racing through his mind and shaking through his limbs is anything but tenuous, he wakes to an empty tent.

Charles is nowhere to be seen. Dread, following the blazing paths left behind by the horror that has torn him open and hollowed him out, settles thickly in his empty stomach. He reacts to this by turning over and gagging until hot, watery bile splashes against the ground with a brownish tint.

As soon as he’s able to finally breathe he takes a hiccup of air, calling in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own—

_“Charles?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick warning: do _not_ look up what a degloved horse hoof looks like if you are squeamish. Degloved simply is another word to describe skinned, or, well, the outer covering removed. It looks like a paintbrush, which is the nicest way I can put it. A very bloody one.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


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